


Losing Sleep

by YKWencest



Category: Tegan and Sara (Band)
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-24
Updated: 2016-08-24
Packaged: 2018-08-10 18:25:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,725
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7856242
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/YKWencest/pseuds/YKWencest
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Tegan spends a sleepless night outside, thinking about her life and her family.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Losing Sleep

**Author's Note:**

> This is a one shot I did while trying to figure out some stuff for other stories. I hope everyone enjoys this.

She couldn’t sleep. Tegan stared out at the sky as she stood on the balcony of the room she shared with her twin. Sara was none the wiser as she stayed in the realm of dreams. Sometimes things got like this. Sometimes, no matter how hard she tried, Tegan just couldn’t sleep. Try as she might, that ever elusive cloud of nighttime relief just would not come.

The night sky was so much prettier away from the city. The blinding lights from below smothered out what light could come from above, leaving only a blank blackish blue roof.

She looked back to the bed. Sara lay there, breathing rhythmically. Mickey and Holiday slept beside their mother, curled up in little balls of fluff. Tegan smiled at the sight. Her family. It was all hers. But the night, she was cruel, and she summoned the devil to whisper in the ear of those who might be up to listen.

What if it all ended? What if Sara woke up one day and decided that it was just easier to go back to pretending? What if Tegan would be forced to move back to her own house and Sara brought another woman in in her place? What if they were never like this again?

 _I love her, and she loves me_ , Tegan would tell the devil. _We’ve loved each other for much longer than most people love one another._

 _And what makes you believe she loves you for real?_ the devil would ask.

_I just do._

Maybe it was all a joke. Maybe Sara didn’t really love her the way she loved Sara. It hurt to think, no matter how unlikely it was.

She pulled up a chair from the balcony and sat down, placing her head in her hands. Why did she give up smoking? It was a dirty, nasty habit, but right now she would give anything for one cigarette. Sara always hated that, always hated how Tegan would smoke. Many a fight were had over the subject. Tegan would do what she pleased anyway, but she would always feel bad afterward.

How could someone have everything they ever wanted and still not be happy? How could she sit out here in the heat of the night and not be sleeping beside the love of her life and their two cat-babies? How could she not be happy, after everything they had ever been through?

Because the devil.

He continued to whisper in her ear despite her insistence that he hush. The devil was crafty, and smart. He always knew just what to say to make one feel so utterly worthless.

_Everything will come crashing down eventually. One of you is going to slip up, most likely you, you dumb bitch, and then it’s off to jail with the both of you forever and ever._

Tegan sat up and leaned her back against the chair, bringing her fingers up to mimicking the act of smoking in an attempt to calm herself down. It didn’t help, but Tegan held out the hope that if she tried hard enough, it would.

She closed her eyes as she continued to move her hands, thinking about her life now. She had Sara. She had Holiday. She had Mickey. She was happy. It was hard to feel it right now for whatever reason it was, but she was, all things considered.

She remembered when Sara got the cats, before they lived together. Tegan loved them as if they were her own, and somewhere deep in her heart, she knew they were. She had the stuffed ones at her old place, she remembered. She would post pictures of them on the internet in hopes of making Sara laugh.

You are so goddamn cute, Sara had sent one time. Tegan smiled triumphantly for the rest of the day after that.

That time was hard for her, though. Knowing that Sara lived in the same city with her, but with some other house guest in her place. Tegan waited, though. She played the good sister. She played the patient person. She smiled her fake smiles to the woman, and she laughed her fake laughs. Tegan would wait for her time alone with Sara, and then their love would bloom, the way it wasn’t allowed in the company of others.

It was hard, but it wasn’t anything compared to Sara living far away.

Back when Sara lived far, far away, Tegan was secretly miserable. Nothing made her truly happy, not even the woman she supposedly loved. That was life, though. That was just how she knew the world. Love Sara, Sara loves you, Sara pretends to love someone else, Sara starts to love someone else, Sara pretends to love you, Sara loves you and someone else, and so on and so forth.

Tegan never could commit to another woman. Why would she when the perfect woman for her was always just right there?

She thought of Emy. Emy was sweet. She loved Emy like a sister. A real sister. Not the way she loved Sara, but the way everyone assumed she loved Sara. She remembered when Sara belonged to Emy. How she hated Emy back then. Those first few months were torture. This woman was the woman that took Sara away from her, the woman that assumed that Sara was her own. Tegan did not like her, and she was even more upset to find out how important to the band she was.

But that passed. Tegan spent more time with Emy, and eventually the two became friends. Tegan would still feel her hints of jealousy toward the other woman, but she would always try to tell herself that she was really the one for Sara.

She thought back to Rob. He loved Sara, or pined for her at the least. The poor man never really stood a chance, but that didn’t matter to Tegan. Sometimes the green inside her would grow in his presence, and she would think of everything she could to stop it. He was already in a bad enough boat, there was no need for Tegan to drill even more holes into it.

Tegan thought all the way back, back to the first girl Sara ever dated. She hated that girl, too. Tegan was Sara’s first love, but at the time they were too young to really understand what they felt for each other. Tegan and Sara spent a lot of her time fighting back then. Tegan assumed at first it was because Sara was gay, and that was “wrong”. But when she thought back on it all, she knew that it was because she wanted to be the one with Sara.

Tegan opened her eyes to the blankness above her and sighed, moving her hand away from her mouth. The devil was being quiet. That was a good sign. Maybe soon she could crawl back into bed with her family and sleep peacefully. Maybe she would wake up and make breakfast for her love, and just enjoy a day around the house. She smiled at that.

Sounds echoed from the city below. New York City was definitely not the only city that refused to slumber. She looked down at the lights and the buildings. She wondered how many people were unable to sleep like her. How many were insomniacs? How many were ne’er do wells? How many were just kids looking to break curfews set by their parents in an effort to be their own people?

Parents. What would their parents say if they saw any of this? What would their mom, or dad, or step dad think? She assumed their mother had an inkling of an idea. Ever since that day Sara was sick, she had the assumption that Sonia was a bit wiser than she originally believed.

Tegan closed her eyes again and continued to move her hand as she had been. She didn’t feel tired. Even without the incessant nagging of the devil in her ear, she didn’t feel like going to sleep. Maybe it was just one of those nights. A warm wind blew threw, lazily moving her hair about her face.

“Tegan?” Sara croaked from inside the bedroom. “Are you smoking?”

“No, baby, go back to bed,” Tegan replied softly, holding both of her hands up to show her twin she hadn’t been doing what she thought. “I’ll be back in a minute.”

“Are you okay?” Sara asked. “Why are you sitting out here?”

“Can’t sleep,” Tegan said as Sara stepped outside to join her on the balcony. “What about you, why are you up?”

“The baby woke me up,” Sara replied, referring to Mickey. She sat down in Tegan’s lap and wrapped her arms around her neck. “He doesn’t understand what bedtime is.”

“No, no he doesn’t,” Tegan chuckled. “What about the other one?”

“She woke up when I got out of bed, but…” Sara took a pause to yawn. “She just laid back down and got comfortable right after that.”

“You probably should’ve shut the door so Mickey wouldn’t get out,” Tegan said.

“He’s fine,” Sara replied. “If he gets into trouble, then his mama will just have to give him a ‘panking.”

“And by his mama, you mean me, don’t you?” Tegan asked.

“Mmm-hmm,” Sara hummed, resting her head on Tegan’s shoulder and closing her eyes.

“You ready to go back to bed, Sasa?” Tegan whispered, rubbing her hand up and down Sara’s back.

“Only if you are,” Sara replied.

Tegan looked back up to the night sky, listening to the sounds of the night. No devil. Maybe he went to bed his own self. Whatever the cause of his silence, Tegan welcomed it. She tapped Sara’s leg with one hand softly.

“Let’s go, yeah.”

Sara stood up and grabbed Tegan’s hand, leading her twin back inside to the bedroom. Tegan shut the door behind them and followed Sara to the bed, crawling back into her spot. Holiday sat up, startled at first, before settling back down in a ball once more. Mickey hopped back up to the bed from wherever it was he had gone off to and settled back into his spot between the twins as well.

“Goodnight, Teetee,” Sara yawned, closing her eyes and falling asleep almost instantly.

“Goodnight, Sasa,” Tegan replied, smiling as she closed her own eyes.


End file.
